glory-idolatry

7/27/2019 GLORY-Idolatry

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GLORY

Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.

EZEKIEL 1:28

Gods goal is his glory, but this needs careful explanation, because it is easily misunderstood. It points to a purpose of

divine love, not of divine egoism. Certainly, God wants to be praised and exalted for his greatness and goodness; he

wants to be appreciated for what he is. But the glory that is his goal is a two-sided, two-stage relationship:

revelatory acts on God's part whereby he shows his glory to men and angels in free generosity a response of adoration on the part of humans and angels who give him glory out of gratitude for what they

have seen and received

In this relationship is realized the fellowship of love for which Gods rational creatures were and are made, and for

which fallen human beings have now been redeemed. The to-and-fro of seeing glory in God and giving glory to God is

the true fulfillment of human nature at its heart, and it brings supreme joy to man just as it does to God (cf. Zeph. 3:14

17).

In the Old Testament "glory" carries associations of weight, worth, wealth, splendor, and dignity, all of which are

present when God is said to have revealed his glory.

God answered Moses plea to see Gods glory when he proclaimed his name to Moses (Exod. 33:1834:7):

Then Moses said, Now show me your glory. And the Lordsaid, I will cause all my goodness to pass in

front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have

mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.But, he said, you cannot see my face,

for no one may see me and live.

Then the Lordsaid, There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I

will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my

hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.

....Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And

he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow

to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness,

rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children

for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.

With that proclamation went an awe-inspiring physical manifestation, the Shekinah, a bright shining cloud that could

look like fire, white-hot (Exod. 24:17).

To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain.

The Shekinah was called the glory of God; it appeared at significant moments in the Bible story as a sign of Gods

active presence

Exod. 33:22; 34:5; cf. 16:7, 10; 24:1517; 40:3435 Lev. 9:2324Moses and Aaron then went into the tent of meeting. When they came out, they blessed the

people; and the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people.24 Fire came out from the presence of

the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it,

they shouted for joy and fell facedown.


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1 Kings 8:1011When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple ofthe LORD. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled

his temple.

Ezek. 1:28; 8:4; 9:3; 10:4; 11:2223 Matt. 17:5While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from t he cloud said, This

is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!

Luke 2:9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and theywere terrified.

1 Thess. 4:17 Rev. 1:7Look, he is coming with the clouds,and every eye will see him,even those who pierced him;

and all peoples on earth will mournbecause of him. So shall it be! Amen.

New Testament writers proclaim that the glory of Gods nature, character, power, and purpose is now open to view in

the person and role of Gods incarnate Son, Jesus Christ

John 1:1418 2 Cor. 4:36 Heb. 1:13

Gods glory, which is shown in the plan and work of grace whereby he saves sinners, is meant to call forth praise (Eph.

1:6, 12, 14)giving glory to God by spoken words (cf. Rev. 4:9; 19:7). All life activities, too, must be pursued with

the aim of giving God homage, honor, and pleasure, which is glory-giving on the practical level (1 Cor. 10:31).

God would not share the praise for restoring his people with idols. Idols are unreal. They contribute nothing to this

work of grace (Isa. 42:8; 48:11). God will not share the praise for salvation with humans, because we too contribute

nothing more to it than our need of it.

From first to last, and at every stage in the process, salvation comes from the Lord, and our praise must show our

awareness of that. This is why Reformation theology insisted on the principle, Glory to God alone (soli Deo gloria),

and why we need to maintain that principle with equal zeal today.

Glory as seen in people takes the form of wealth, position and power (Gn. 31:1; 45:13; Is. 8:7). The glory that God

shows, however, is the reality of his active presence, linked with the quality of his acts.

In OT times God's glory took the physical form of:

light (lightning, Ps. 29:3

the brightness of theophany Ezk. 1:2728

the bright cloud that led Israel through the wilderness, locating itself in the tabernacle, Ex. 40:3438, and

appearing later in the Temple, 2 Chr. 7:13

1. Gods goal in all that he does is his glory, in the sense of

a. displaying his moral excellence to his creatures and

b. evoking their praise for what they see and for the benefit it brings them (cf. Eph. 1:3).

2. Mans goal in all his actions must be Gods glory in the sense of doxology by word and deed.

3. God so made us that we find the duty of doxology to be our supreme delight, and in that way the furthering of our

own highest good.

Q. What is the chief end of man?


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A. Mans chief end is to glorify God, (1 Cor. 10:31, Rom. 11:36) and to enjoy him forever. (Ps. 73:2528)

The Westminster Shorter Catechism

IDOLATRY

GOD DEMANDS TOTAL ALLEGIANCE

I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and wentafter her lovers, but me she forgot, declares the LORD. HOSEA 2:13

Though there is only one God and only one true faith, namely that which is taught in the Bible. Our apostate world

(Rom. 1:1825) has always been full of religions. The age-old urging towardsyncretism, whereby aspects of one

religion are assimilated into another thus changing both, is still with us. In fact, it has been revived in our time through

the renewed academic quest for a transcendent unity of religions and the flowering of the popular amalgam of Eastern

and Western ideas that calls itself the New Age.

The pressure here is not new. Having occupied Canaan, Israel was constantly tempted to absorb Canaanite worship of

fertility gods and goddesses into the worship of Yahweh, and to make images of Yahweh himselfboth of which were

forbidden by the law (Exod. 20:36). The spiritual issue was whether the Israelites would remember that Yahweh, their

covenant God, was all-sufficient for them, and moreover claimed their exclusive allegiance, so that worshiping other

gods was spiritual adultery (Jer. 3; Ezek. 16; Hos. 2). This was a test the nation largely failed.

Syncretism was similarly widespread and approved in the first-century Roman empire, where polytheism was rife and

all sorts of cults flourished. Christian teachers fought hard to keep the faith from being assimilated to Gnosticism (a

kind of theosophy that had no use for incarnation and atonement, since it saw mans problem as one of ignorance, not

sin), and later to Neoplatonism and Manichaeism, both of which saw salvation as mainly a matter of getting detached

from the physical world. These conflicts were relatively successful, and the classic creedal formulations of the Trinity

and the Incarnation are part of their permanent legacy.

Scripture is stern about the evil of practicing idolatry. Idols :

are mocked as delusive nonentities:

Ps. 115:47But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak,

eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot

feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats.

Isaiah 44:9-20

enslave their worshippers in blind superstition

Isa. 44:20Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say,Is

not this thing in my right hand a lie?

are infidelity towards God (Jer. 2)

Jer. 2:11But my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols.


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Paul adds that demons operate through idols, making them a positive spiritual menace, contact with which cannot but

corrupt (1 Cor. 8:46; ).

1 Cor. 8:4-6So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that An idol is nothing at all in the

worldand that There is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth(as indeed there are many gods and many lords), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whomall things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things

came and through whom we live.

1 Cor. 10:1921Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No,

but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with

demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the

Lords Table and the table of demons.

In our post-Christian Western culture, which is prepared to fill the spiritual vacuum that people feel by looking kindly

on syncretism, witchcraft, and experiments with the occult, the biblical warnings against idolatry need to be taken to

heart (cf. 1 Cor. 10:14; 1 John 5:1921).

glory-idolatry

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